Writers, Critics and Children (review)

Taken largely from the international periodical, Children's Literature in Education, Writers, Critics, and Childrencontains twenty-three essays in three parts. In part one, such writers as Joan Aiken, Nina Bawden, Gillian Avery, and Geoffrey Trease explain how and why they write for children and present some of the problems inherent in such writing. One comes away from this group of essays realizing with more certainty than ever that writing for children is not easy even when it is done as Joan Aiken says, "because that is what I happen to love doing." One senses after reading the essays of An Rutgers van der Loeff and Geoffrey Trease that historical fiction for children requires not only dedicated research before actual writing begins but also a "standard of sheer accuracy" by the novelist who is, according to Trease, writing for an "educated audience, alert for the slightest mistake." In Mist over Athelney, Trease had his characters eat rabbit stew. The error passed his editors, his critics, and the reviewers, "But it didn't pass an eleven-year-old boy in Aberdeen, who wrote to tell me that there were no rabbits in England before the Norman Conquest."

In part two, writers of books for children as well as critics offer a variety of topics ranging from a defense of "rubbish" to an appreciation of the three novels of E.B. White. Peter Dickinson's "A Defense of Rubbish" will raise the hackles of the purists among us, but all those of us who have despaired over children—and adults—who never open a book of their own volition and for their own delight, will silently—or perhaps loudly—applaud his courage and what he says. For those who see little or no meaning in the term "children's books," Myles McDowell's "Fiction for Children and Adults: Some Essential Differences" will be thoughtfully and reasonably persuasive. And for those who think of reading as a "vicarious experience," "identification," and "escape," Fred Inglis' essay is stimulating because he suggest that reading is a "social experience," and that we "respond" to fiction as "an onlooker of human actions."

In part three, several writers, most of whom are teachers, offer seven essays on pedagogy, which range from the specific to the nebulous. John Cheetham's "Quarries in the Primary School" offers, among other things, five detailed ways to use Meindert deJong's The Wheel on the Schoolwith a fourth form class. Geoff Fox's "Notes on Teaching A Wizard of Earthsea" offers random jottings on some teachers' reactions to the novel, and why the notes are included is unclear. With the exception of Fox's "Notes," part three will help those who stress pedagogy in their children's literature classes, and it will help those who do not because it will make them more aware of some of the problems students face when they enter the classroom. Perhaps the best suggestion on pedagogy comes from Edward Blishen in the last paragraph of the last essay in the book: to create a love of reading, Blishen says, "all it really requires is excitement on our part to cause reading to take place." That is good advice for all of us whether we are in the elementary or the college classroom.

That many of these essays have already appeared in Children's Literature in Educationdoes not make the book any less valuable because it is convenient to have them easily available in a book. Writers, Critics and Childrenhas an occasional annotation, but no bibliography of the several books mentioned in the essays; there is no index. Both would have made the book much more useful. The brief introductions to the writers of the essays help to give authority to much of what each writer says.